11 December 2011

Begetting

A creative weekend, intense, productive, good. The thing about creating, is that it makes me miss creating. Sort of like happy begets happy. Creativity begets creativity. And there is such power in that.

Speaking of begetting: The most recent Duggar news having me feel like a big old asshole for being so reflexively and irrationally angry at her 20th pregnancy (why the hell do I do that? it made me feel defeated and here I am on the far side of IF hell with a dreamy baby. WTF.), and then feeling the stomach punch as the whole universe learns of her miscarriage via yahoo or other internet news. I ache for her. For them. Gah.

And a tough conversation this weekend with a beloved friend who is going through hell made me realize, no matter what happiness comes, old pain, the kind that sticks in our bones after a big loss, well, it sort of lurks there. Undermined self confidence sticks around. Grief hovers, waiting. It is not that they are stalking, I don't think they are that active. But they are pretty impressively opportunistic. Pain often brings up old pain. Grief brings up old grief. Powerlessness brings up old powerlessness.

So, in this moment, I want to forgive myself my old pain, the one that made me angry at a woman I do not even know, simply for getting pregnant.

And I want to wish on all of us a little self-compassion. Sometimes, in an immediate emotional moment, it does not matter what we have. Sometimes what matters most to our poor battered hearts isn't what we have, it's what we've lost.

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About this blog

I started this blog during struggles with infertility--struggles that resulted in countless IUIs, medications, procedures, 5 attempted IVF cycles, 2 pregnancies, one heartbreaking loss, and one miracle baby.

Parenthood left me feeling like I was not sure what to do here, with this amazing community. To talk about parenting felt boastful for those still and forever struggling. To not talk about it felt disingenuous. So here I am. I want to talk about my real life. Parenting. Midlife reassessment. Flailing. Finding myself. Mucking about.

So yes, I am a midlife parent of an amazing child.Yes, I battled infertility and will be forever changed by every single moment of that journey.I am imperfect and life is messy, but it is also so beautiful.

Among many other things, I hope to reconnect to myself through writing here. And I hope to connect with you too. Others out there, parenting maybe later in life. Maybe after struggling. Maybe struggling still. We can all use a safe place and a lot of compassion. That's what I am offering to you. I hope you'll stick around.

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inside out

"The key is, starting from the inside out. Often you say, “I don’t know what to do.” True, you don’t know what to do. There are infinite possibilities. And a bunch of them haven’t worked for you. A lot of them have been tried, and they haven’t worked under what you think are the same conditions. And so, you sort of pace around, you don’t know what to do. Sometimes you don’t even know what you want to have. But you always, you always, if you will stop and think about it, you ALWAYS know how you want to feel."